Christchurch aftershocks get in the way

Fletcher Building
CEO
Jonathan Ling
believes adamantly the rebuilding of Christchurch cannot start until the aftershocks subside. New Zealand’s largest construction materials group was appointed project manager to oversee the repair and reconstruction effort in the Canterbury region, originally forecast to cost NZ$2.5 billion ($1.93 billion). Well over 20,000 emergency repairs have been completed but rebuilding efforts have been hindered by consistent and sizeable aftershocks since the massive earthquake in February 2011. “You can’t really start building until the aftershocks stop, from an insurance point of view. At some point, those aftershocks will stop and we’ll start building," he said.

Mr Ling dismissed analysts’ cautions that the rebuild will be smaller than predicted, as more people leave the city permanently. “It’s no different to Cyclone Tracy in Darwin, when the locals lost jobs and left. It will stabilise and it will attract people to build houses. We just have to go through that cycle." Fletcher Building earns a 3.5 per cent margin on top of the project cost for its role as project manager.